- RAWSTORY.COM - Raw Story - 19/Jul 16:00

Note to Trump: This is never a reassuring response

Ask yourself a simple question.If someone wrote treacherous, slanderous lies claiming that you had engaged in some of the most disgusting conduct imaginable years ago — and you had not done anything of the kind — how would you respond?Keep that answer to yourself, but I’m going to take a wild guess at the word choice you wouldn’t have selected:”THEY GOT NOTHING!”But it was with those words that the president of the United States greeted the nation on his tragically misnomered “Truth Social” media account with this really, really not great attempt at deflection:“If there was a “smoking gun” on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the “files” for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!”To be fair, Trump did not use the full sentence, “they had nothing on me.” But “they had nothing” lands something akin to “they didn’t even find the drugs” when lambasting authorities for an unwarranted search of one’s home.For me, it immediately had me humming lyrics from the great George Michael classic, Careless Whisper: “I’m never gonna dance again / Guilty feet have got no rhythm…”Michael died tragically just 26 days before Trump first took office in 2017. But he seems to have written the soundtrack of Trump's life.The most recent fuse to ignite intemperate Trump rage was a Wall Street Journal bombshell reporting that it had obtained a photo album that included a letter sent by Trump in 2003 to convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein on the occasion of the latter’s 50th birthday.From the Journal:“The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy — like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.The letter concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”Trump’s angry response was duly noted by the newspaper:“Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” he said.“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”He told the Journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he said.Trump reiterated those threats Friday morning. And a willing line of sycophants, led by Vice President J.D. Vance, joined in condemnation of the Journal for claiming to have possession of this alleged birthday card when of course it could not possibly exist.I’m going to venture a guess that if the Wall Street Journal published this story under direct threat of a Trump lawsuit, the odds of the newspaper having invented the existence of the birthday card — and not having forensically verified its authenticity — pretty much approximate zero.The Journal didn’t accuse Trump of criminal wrongdoing. It simply added fuel to the fire of Trump’s undeniable friendship with Epstein — right around the time Epstein is alleged to have committed his most heinous crimes.It does not follow that there is evidence of any criminal guilt whatsoever on Trump’s part. Even if he had cavorted with Epstein and some women — which video evidence seems to suggest is not an unimaginable prospect — it is an unreasonable and potentially libelous inference to suggest he engaged in any conduct involving underage women.My guess is Trump did not. But that’s not one of his problems here.Those problems include Trump’s own documented history of stoking — for much political gain — wild conspiracy theories about Democrats covering up for Epstein, being complicit in Epstein’s crimes and otherwise having adopted pedophilia as a key element of their party’s philosophy.As of this morning, however, Trump has pivoted rather sharply to attacking Democrats for doing nothing with the Epstein files because “they had nothing” in them. Well, it can’t be both, can it?But what looms even more ominously for Trump is the truth that he had more than a passing friendship with Epstein and that his efforts to deny or reinvent those — and those of his flock — just continue to make things much, much worse.The Journal’s reporting of the bawdy birthday card in 2003, if accurate, is quite consistent with Trump’s public affection for Epstein, as I posted here, in which he most certainly had this to say: “He’s a lot of fun to be with… It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”Trump knows the story isn’t over. He knows this isn’t about what has been said, but about what might be coming—through testimony, depositions, and receipts that he can’t control or deny. He knows the Epstein case remains toxic.More from Michael’s Careless Whisper:“There’s no comfort in the truth / Pain is all you’ll find.”Trump’s tolerance for that remains to be seen.